CHAPTER VI.
The road that De Coucy followed had been made, apparently, without the least purpose of proceeding straight to Paris, though it ultimately terminated there; but its object seemed more particularly to visit every possible place on the way, without leaving the smallest village within several miles of the direct line to complain of being neglected. Thus, instead of cutting off angles, and such other whimsical improvements of modern days, it proceeded along the banks of the river, following, with a laudable pertinacity, all the turnings and windings thereof. This sort of road, which uncommonly resembles the way in which I have been obliged to relate this most meandering of histories, is doubtless very agreeable when you have plenty of time to stay and amuse yourself with the pleasures of this prospect or that--to get off your horse to gather a flower upon the bank--to pause under the shadow of a tree, and pant in concert with your beast in the cool air; but when you are in a hurry, then is the time to bless modern shorts cuts. Such must by my case; for, having a long way before me, and a short space to do it in, I must abridge De Coucy's journey as much as possible; and, only staying to relate two events which occurred to him on the road, must hasten to bring him, together with my other characters, to that one point to which all their histories are tending.
Passing over, then, the follies of Gallon the fool, who, notwithstanding all his maniac malice, felt he knew not what of joy at his lord's deliverance, and all the details given by Ermold de Marcy concerning his various peregrinations and negotiations, together with the young knight's joyful feelings on his liberation, and his sorrowful ones at the accounts he heard of the unhappy Count d'Auvergne, we will bring the whole party at once to that high hill from which the lower road to Paris descends rapidly on the little, dirty, old-fashioned town called the Pont de l'Arche.
There being few things more uncertain in the world than the smiles of beauty and the boundaries of kingdoms, the limits of France, which have been here, and there, and every where, within the last few centuries, were fixed, on the precise day I speak of, at the Pont de l'Arche. That hill being then the extreme limit of King John's Norman dominions, his deputy prévôt, John of Wincaunton, was, at the very moment De Coucy and his followers arrived at the summit of the hill, engaged in the very praiseworthy occupation of hanging the Brabançois, Jodelle, to one of the highest elms in the land.
It must not, however, be inferred that the hanging had actually commenced; for though the prévôt, with a party of six or seven men, very well calculated to hang their neighbours, stood round Jodelle under the tree, while one of their companions fastened the end of a thick noose tightly to one of the strongest branches, yet the plunderer's neck was still free from that encumbrance so fatal to persons of his profession.
There are various sorts of bravery; and Jodelle was a brave man, of a certain sort. He had never shown himself afraid of death; and yet, the idea of hanging affected him with mortal fear--whether he fancied that that peculiar position would be unpleasant to him or not, can hardly be said; but certain it is, though he had never shrunk from death in the battle-field, his face looked already that of a corpse; his limbs shook, and his teeth chattered, at the sight of the awful preparations that were carrying on around him.
What is there to which hope will not attach itself? Even the sight of De Coucy, whom he had sold to his enemies, awoke a dream of it in the breast of the Brabançois, and with pitiful cries he adjured the knight to save him from the hands of his executioners.
The men of the prévôt stood to their arms; but the knight's reply soon showed them they had no molestation to fear from him. "Villain," answered he, "if I saved thee from their hands, it should be but to impale thee alive! Every drop of Prince Arthur's blood cries vengeance upon thee! and, by Heaven! I have a mind to stay and see thee hanged myself!"
"Haw, law!" cried Gallon the fool,--"Haw, haw! Beau sire Jodelle! It strikes me, they are going to hang thee, beau sire! Undo the haussecol of thy doublet, man. They are going to give thee one of tighter stuff. Haw, haw, Sire Brabançois! Haw, haw! Why pray you not the Coucy again? Perchance he may be moved. Or, rather, why pray you not me? I am the only man in the troop that can aid thee--Haw, haw, haw! haw, haw! I could save thee if I would!"
"Thou wouldst not if thou couldst, fiend," replied Jodelle, glaring on him with eyes in which wrath struggled with terror, for his executioners were now actually adjusting the noose to his neck, and his pinioned hands might be seen to quiver with the agonising anticipation of destruction. "I do now believe thee a devil indeed, as thou once toldest me, for none but the devil could mock me in such a moment as this."
"Haw, haw, haw! Haw, haw, haw!" roared Gallon, rolling on his horse with laughter. "Dost thou believe? Well, then, for that I will save thee;" and, riding up to the prévôt, the juggler thrust his snout into that officer's ear, and whispered a few words, in regard to the truth of which the other seemed at first doubtful. Gallon, however, exclaimed, "'Tis true, thou infidel! 'tis true! I heard the order given myself! Look ye there!--There comes the messenger down in the valley--Haw, haw, haw! Ye fools! Thought you king John could spare so useful a villain as that?"
The prévôt gazed in the direction wherein the juggler pointed; and then made a sign to his men to put a stop to the preparations, which they were hurrying forward with most unseemly haste; while Gallon, with a patronising sort of nod to Jodelle, and a loud laugh, rode on after De Coucy, who had not waited to listen to the termination of the eloquent conversation between the juggler and the coterel. At the bottom of the hill, however, the young knight turned his head, never doubting that he should behold the form of his late follower dangling from the elm; but, to his surprise, he perceived two of the men placing Jodelle on horseback, still apparently bound, and the rest hastening to mount their own beasts, while a horseman was seen conversing with the prévôt.
"By St. Paul! if thou hast saved that fellow from the hands of the hangman," cried De Coucy, "thou art a juggler indeed, and a mischievous one to boot, friend Gallon!"
"'Twas not I saved him, friend Coucy," replied Gallon, who was in somewhat of a saner state of mind than usual. "'Twas our very good friend and patron, John, King of England; and I'll tell thee what, Coucy, if you ill-treat me, and thump me, as you used sometimes to do, I'll e'en take service with him, John of Anjou, and leave you! Haw, haw! What do you think of that? Or else I'll go and live with fair William de la Roche Guyon," he added, in his rambling way. "He loves me dearly, does William de la Roche Guyon. So I'll go and live with him, when I want to better myself. Haw, haw! Then I shall always be near the pretty Lady Isadore of the Mount, whom good King John of England gave to fair Count William this morning, for standing by him in his need, as he said. 'Twas all in a whisper; but I would have heard it had it been twice a whisper; my ears are as fine as my nose. Haw, haw!"
De Coucy had drawn his rein at the first word of these very pleasing tidings, which Gallon communicated with a broad lack-lustre stare, from which he had banished every particle of speculation; so that, whether it was true or false, a dreadful reality or an idiotic jest, was in no degree to be gathered from his countenance.
"What is that you say?" cried the knight. "Tell me, good Gallon, for the love of Heaven, are you serious in your news?"
"Good Gallon!--Haw! haw!" shouted the jongleur,--"Good Gallon! He'll call me pretty Gallon next!--Haw, haw, haw!--Coucy, you are mad!"
"For God's sake!" cried the knight earnestly, "do not drive me mad really; but, for once, try to give me a connected answer. Say! What was it you heard that traitorous king say to the beardless, womanly coward, William de la Roche Guyon?"
"Give you a connected answer!" replied Gallon, suddenly assuming an unwonted gravity. "Why should you doubt my giving you one? I'm not mad, Coucy! I'll tell you what the king said, as wisely as he that spoke it. William de la Roche, whispered he, with the face of a cat lapping a saucer full of cream--William de la Roche, you have stood by me this day in my need, and I will not forget it."
And Gallon, though with a countenance as unlike that of John of Anjou as any human face could well be, contrived to imitate the king's look and manner, so as to leave no earthly doubt, not only that he had said what the fool attributed to him, but that he had also precisely said it as was represented.
"Well then," continued the jongleur, "the noble king bade him, fair William de Roche as aforesaid, take the fair Lady Isadore from the castle of Moulineaux, hard by Rouen, where her father, Count Julian the Wise, had left her under the care of the Lady Plumdumpling, or some such English name; and when he had got her, to carry her whither he would, as quickly as possible. And the sweet potentate John, with true kingly consideration for the happiness of his lieges, added this sage counsel to the aforesaid William, namely, that if he liked, he might marry the maid; but if he liked light love better than broad lands, he might make his leman of her."
"By the Lord, fool! if thou deceivest me, thou shall rue it!" cried De Coucy. "I believe not thy tale! How came her father to trust her from his sight?"
"I fear me, my lord. Gallon is right," said Ermold de Marcy, who various negotiations had somewhat rubbed off the rawness of his youth, and given him confidence to address his master more boldly. "In my wanderings about, striving to achieve your ransom, I have heard much of Count Julian and his proceedings; and I thus learned, that not long after your capture, he left the court of King John, to raise all his vassals for the great alliance that, men say, is forming against King Philip, leaving the Lady Isadore as a hostage for his faith, with the Lady Plymlymman of Cornouaille, chatelaine of the castle of Moulineaux. So that Gallon's tale is too likely to be true."
While the page spoke, the juggler drew his two eyes together upon De Coucy's countenance, watching, with a fiendish sort of pleasure, the workings of all those powerful feelings that the news he had given had cast into commotion. At length he burst into a loud laugh. "Haw, haw!" cried he. "Haw, haw, haw! De Coucy's in a rage!--Now, Coucy, now, think of the very best way of cleaving me down Guillaume de la Roche from the crest to the saddle. Haw, haw, haw! Oh, rare! Crack his skull like a walnut-shell, and leave him no more brains than a date-stone. Haw, haw! haw, haw!"